Nowadays, I am working in Wniklix. Prior to joining Winklix, I had gained some years of experience working as a senior project manager at an app development company where I worked on project management for 20 projects for various clients. Moreover, my first job was started by working at a digital advertising agency, where I attempted to combine experiential campaigns with online marketing strategies to produce award-winning results.
During my first year in project management at Winklicks, I was assigned a project that was one of the most challenging and enjoyable opportunities of my career to date. Little did I know that it might take me about two years to complete it. I wanted to be in an industry that I knew nothing about. The client presented what we thought was a simple brief. He wanted to build a share trading platform. We knew that before the project started, we might have to face some challenges. Which is as follows:
- First experience to create a fenched app
- Product estimation in stock trading space in the market
- To be a big project compared to that time. As we usually took to Winklicks and at that time we were widespread compared to the MVP type app proposed.
None of which did not stop us. In fact, I realized that those challenges contributed to our success and ultimately pushed us towards a collective spirit. We can do this, and we can take it out of the park.
Improve Project Awareness & Find the Right Third-Party Vendors
We first jumped into the head. Fortunately we were working with a very sensible customer who was ready to educate us on the industry and understood how scope and a startup product should be made. From the beginning, we knew that we could not make this product from scratch. While working with our client and team, we reviewed several third-party API vendors, which we knew that we had already made applications with functionality that we wanted to include in ourselves. We came to know that we have to use many different software solutions to create our desired product. During this project it was the biggest learning. We worked with six separate API partners to integrate into a backend solution in our iOS app.
The thing we had ended up with was essentially our own stock trading platform, which we could update and could trust our Frontend app without fixing the bug. But it was not always seamless sailing. There are always many problems while working with third-party products. Whenever they are updated or require fixes, you will not always have control. Not to mention, that many times they become unsupported for long periods, which can cause more issues during development. Apart from this, when many vendors are involved, in many time areas, getting documentation from communication and third parties can be very painful.
We imposed a new trick and initially adopted the project for three months development. Now look back and what we learned from this project was very optimistic. But also see that we can not help but be proud of the technique we have produced.
Issues Encountered During the Product Development Process
The technology was not only one obstacle which we had to remove. Compliance was another area which was new to our team while making the product. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority also needs to consult during the design and development steps. It pressures us to pay attention to two factors:
- The effect of the timeline on receiving approval
- Security concerns
An additional benefit to use third party API software means that security was already taken care of, because we had only used those systems who already had financial compliance approval. However, the concept of product and platform was new to the industry, within our existing guidelines, what our app does and how we are making it, brief information will be required.
From a project management perspective, it means that to keep our development timeline on track, we have to plan a review of the design with fingers as a part of your process. Equipment such as invitation helps our vision to communicate with a committee of stakeholders which are not necessarily literate in technology. It was the slowest part of the entire process, because Finnah compliance often takes a long time for review. Presentations will often be returned with questions and a follow-up note, which requires updates on the necessary facilities and documentation to provide us, which make an interactive process that they realized that it was never really completed.
Working a team together in Project Management
Working in winklicks, I learned a lot about keeping the teams on the same page. By ensuring that our team’s developers and designers were updated with customer requests, our third party vendors keep updated on our development work, to schedule meetings with customers on a weekly basis. Every step is as important as the next. A project management role is about ensuring that trains run on time. If we do not have complete transparency with your customer from the beginning then it will not be achieved. Remembering that as an app development team, we had our expertise and others were important to fulfill this project and create an accessible app.
My advice to young project management professionals should be more time to prepare a roadmap for the project before development. The fine information of the project and be familiar with the parties involved in it, especially the background of the client and third party vendor working with you. Do your research and if the problem comes, you can contact us. Remember that you do not need to be an expert in every field, unless you are ready to work to create the best app.
